Wildlife Recording

New and experienced recorders alike are often faced with a conundrum over where to send their wildlife records. Will they be checked for errors, will any feedback be provided, will they be made publically available so they can be seen by other recorders, will they be shared with organisations able to use them for research, conservation and education - and how long will all this take?

The flow of biological records has improved tremendously since the CCBR report (1995) stated that three quarters of biological records were not shared or used beyond the organisation that originally collected or collated them. Nevertheless, there can still be delays, duplication and even dead-ends in data flow. All organisations who accept biological records should have a published policy on how they will manage and disseminate them, so you can be an 'informed consumer' when deciding where to send your records - but please do send them somewhere! Every record is useful.

Our Links page has information on organisations to whom you can submit your records - notably National Recording Schemes, Local Environmental Records Centres and Local Natural History Societies.

You can also enter wildlife records using the online recording forms on this website. These are stored securely on servers at the Biological Records Centre, made available to experts for verification via iRecord and, once verified, shared via the NBN Gateway.